Legal Education and
the Reproduction of the
Elite in Japan
Setsuo Miyazawa
ý
Asian-Pacific Law
& Policy Journal
-----
http://www.hawaii.edu/aplpj
Copyright © 2000 APLPJ
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2: 1
Legal Education and the Reproduction of the Elite in Japan
Setsuo Miyazawa 1
with
Hiroshi Otsuka 2
A Paper Prepared for the Conference on
NEW CHALLENGE FOR THE RULE OF LAW ,
LAWYERS, INTERNATIONALIZATION, AND
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF LEGAL RULES 3
Acknowledgment: At Kobe University Faculty of Law, Ken’ichi Yoneda, then a
lecturer, Keiichi Ageishi, then a doctoral student, and Masashi Kanno, then a
master’s student, helped the authors in data collection. In Cambridge, Hans Van
Der Sande, a JD student at Harvard Law School, edited most of the text and Table
1, and Roy Freed, Esq., edited the conclusion. For the publication in the AsianPacific Law & Policy Journal, James Hitchingham, Editor-in-Chief, and his staff
who kindly reformatted and otherwise refined the paper. The authors are most
grateful to them.
I.
II.
INTRODUCTION
A. Legal Education and the Production of the Power Elite before the Second
World War
B. The Elite in Japanese Politics
C. The Elite in Japanese Bureaucracy
D. The Elite in Business
E. The Elite in Judiciary
F. The Elite in Legal Academia
CONCLUSIONS
I.
INTRODUCTION
C. Wright Mills wrote that the “power elite is composed of men whose positions enable
them to transcend the ordinary environments of ordinary men and women; they are in positions
to make decisions having major consequences,” that “the drama of the elite is ... centered in the
command posts of the major institutional hierarchies,” and that “there are now those command
1
Professor of Law at Kobe University.
2
Then a doctoral student in Law at Kobe University. Now, a lecturer at Nara Women’s University.
3
November 7-9, 1997, University of California at Santa Barbara.
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posts of modern society which offer us the sociological key to an understanding of the role of the
higher circles in America.” 4
Since “[w]ithin American society, major national power now
resides in the economic, the political, and the military domains,” 5 the “chief executives ... the
political directorate ... [and] the elite of soldier-statesmen ... tend to come together, to form the
power elite of America.” 6
Then, who are the power elite in Japan? A standard answer to this question is that they
are top members of the ruling party in the Diet, in the public bureaucracy, and in the business
community. 7 Such a view, however, has recently come under increasing criticism.
The Liberal Democratic Party continuously controlled the Diet of Japan for forty-eight
years between 1955 and 1993, and returned to power in 1996 as the overwhelmingly largest
partner of a coalition government. Zoku or its members representing special interests “align with
bureaucrats and interest groups, in a kind of Japanese version of the iron triangle,” but they “also
play an autonomous role vis-à-vis the two other corners of the triangle[.]” 8 While “[p]reviously,
former bureaucrats had played leading roles both in key private-sector organizations and in the
ruling party[,] … [a]fter the 1970s, subtle barriers arose among elite groups that were nearly
obliged by experience and responsibility to represent separate spheres of Japanese society.” 9
Moreover, not only does the jurisdictional sectionalism of the ministries and agencies of the
central government often prevent policy coordination, 10 but also the whole relationship among
the three groups is characterized by rivalry as well as cooperation, and the fragmentation of the
elite structure has been observed. 11 Therefore, it has become increasingly difficult to argue that
4
C. W RIGHT M ILLS, THE POWER ELITE 3-5 (1956).
5
Id. at 6.
6
Id. at 9.
7
YOSHIO SUGIMOTO, A N INTRODUCTION TO JAPANESE SOCIETY 193-219 (1997).
8
GERALD L. CURTIS, THE JAPANESE WAY OF POLITICS, 115 (1988).
9
Gary D. Allinson, Citizenship, Fragmentation, and the Negotiated Polity in POLITICAL DYNAMICS IN
CONTEMPORARY JAPAN 29-30 (Gary D. Allinson & Yasunori Sone eds., 1993).
10
See SUGIMOTO, supra note 7, at 195-96; CHALMERS JOHNSON, JAPAN: W HO GOVERNS 120-21 (1995).
11
See SUGIMOTO, supra note 7, at 216-18.
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top members of the ruling party, the public bureaucracy, and the business community
“command.”
Nevertheless, no one denies that these top members still hold key positions in their
respective sector of the Japanese society, so that nothing important can be decided without their
participation, though they do not always get what they want.
In this sense, they can still be
called the elite of Japan, if not the power elite.
This paper analyzes the relationship between legal education and the reproduction of
those elite in Japan.
In the first section of this paper, we will summarize the historical
development of legal education in Japan in the context of conscious modernization of Japan by
the government. In each of the following three sections, we will analyze more recent situations
regarding politics, bureaucracy, and business, respectively.
We will show that the basic
characteristics of the relationship between legal education and the reproduction of the elite
established in the pre-Second World War era have largely survived in the post-Second World
War era. We will, then, examine how teachers of those elite, namely elite law teachers, are
reproduced, and how elite members of the judicial system are reproduced. In the conclusion, we
will discuss what reforms are required to change problematic aspects of the existing pattern.
A.
Legal Education and the Production of the Power Elite before the Second World
War
The history of legal education and its political context in Japan before the Second World
War is summarized in Table 1. 12
Legal education was highly fragmented until the Imperial University was established in
1886. Since there was not a sufficiently large pool of people educated in western arts and
sciences as required for the rapid modernization of the country, various governmental ministries
established schools to educate their own personnel. Students received scholarships and were
required to work in their respective ministry for a certain number of years. The Justice Ministry,
which not only had prosecutors as its staff, but also had the judiciary under its control,
established its own law school in 1871.
Then, the Ministry of Education established the
12
See generally IKUO A MANO, KINDAI NIPPON KOTO KYOIKU KENKYU [A STUDY ON THE HIGHER
EDUCATION OF MODERN JAPAN ] (1989); M AKOTO A SO, NIPPON NO GAKUREI ERITO [THE EDUCATION -BASED ELITE
IN JAPAN] (1991); Takayoshi Yoroi, The Faculty of Law at Imperial Universities and “National-Social Demand” (in
Japanese) 22 HO - SHAKAIGAKU (1970).
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University of Tokyo in 1877 and opened its own Faculty of Law, mainly to educate teachers for
various national schools. Graduates of this law faculty also became prosecutors and judges.
Graduates of the Justice Ministry Law School and University of Tokyo Law Faculty did not need
to take a qualifying examination to become attorneys, but that career was less attractive to them.
In the meantime, private law schools started to appear in 1880. Their main purpose was
to prepare students for qualifying examinations to become attorneys.
They also produced
members of the movement for increasing freedom and democracy in Japan (jiyu minken undo).
Since private law schools, however, had to rely almost solely on tuition fees paid by students,
faculty members were paid very little, if anything at all, and these schools had to admit a large
number of students beyond their capacity. Not surprisingly, the quality of their legal education
was far below the level of the University of Tokyo, which was supported entirely by the
government.
The gap between University of Tokyo Law Faculty and private law schools also reflected
differences in their academic backgrounds. In order to enter Tokyo University, students until the
1910s had to finish four years of compulsory education in normal elementary school, two to four
years in higher elementary school, five years in middle school, and three years in high school. It
was not uncommon to spend a year or two between middle school and high school preparing for
entrance examinations. Therefore, it took ten to fifteen years of compulsory education in order
to enter the University of Tokyo. The number of students who could afford to go through this
process was extremely small. Private law schools, needing a large number of students, did not
even require graduation from middle school. They admitted many students based solely upon
examinations.
This amorphous situation changed when the government decided to change the
University of Tokyo to the Imperial University as the sole institution of training fast-track career
bureaucrats, who were called koto bunkan or high civil servants. The University of Tokyo Law
Faculty first absorbed the Justice Ministry Law School in 1885 and when the University of
Tokyo became the Imperial University in 1886, the Faculty of Law became the College of Law.
The Decree on Imperial University (Teikoku Daigaku Rei) defined the purpose of the
University as the teaching of arts and skills that satisfy needs of the state. One such need was the
training of trustworthy students to fill positions in governmental agencies, particularly the
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Finance Ministry and the Ministry of Home Affairs. The Ministry of Home Affairs was an
extraordinary ministry since it encompassed an enormous range of policy areas presently covered
by several ministries, controlled local governments by sending its officials as governors of
prefectures, and, most importantly, included police forces. Another need was to develop legal
studies that would serve the interests of the state and shield those students from the influence of
liberal legal studies taught at private law schools.
Thus, the government established the Rules of Civil Service Examination and
Apprenticeship (Bunkan Shiken Shiho oyobi Minarai Kisoku) in 1887, and waived that
examination only for graduates of the Colleges of Law and Letters of the Imperial University.
The purpose was to recruit a small number of both highly talented and politically acceptable
persons, and place them in fast-track careers that were totally separated from middle and lowranking civil servants. Their highly privileged status was created to maintain their loyalty to the
government. In this sense, they clearly fit the definition of the power elite as defined by Mills.
They were recruited, nurtured, and assigned responsibilities and powers specifically for the
purpose of commanding the country.
At the same time, the government gave the power to supervise private law schools to the
President of the Imperial University. The government, in return, allowed graduates of the seven
recognized private law schools to take the civil service examination if they had completed
middle school. The reason for this was the lack of governmental resources to increase legal
education under its direct control. Therefore, the government tried to co-opt private law schools
as supplementary resources. The quality of legal education at private law schools was definitely
improved. Since such schools’ students, however, included those who had not finished middle
school, the number of students who enjoyed this privilege was limited. Moreover, the political
tone of teaching at private law schools also changed since they had to conform to that of the
Imperial University. Nevertheless, other private law schools followed their suit in order to
obtain the same privilege. Ultimately, however, the government dumped these private law
schools by denying this privilege once its immediate needs were met as soon as in 1893.
Table 2 indicates occupations of early graduates of the College of Law of the Imperial
University. The largest groups are high-ranking administrative officers, followed by judicial
officers. Only a small minority became attorneys.
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Table 3 indicates a contrasting situation at private law schools. The occupations of a
large number of graduates were not known probably because they simply returned to their
hometowns and villages. Only a small minority of graduates joined the government as highranking bureaucrats, while the largest category is “other” governmental jobs, namely, middleand low-ranking governmental jobs. Nearly as many graduates also became attorneys.
Imperial University graduates who received a bachelor’s degree did not need to take the
employment examination for judicial positions either. The reason was that not many holders of a
bachelor’s degree wanted to become a judge or a prosecutor, largely because their institutional
reputation was lower than that of high-ranking administrative officers, their power was decidedly
smaller than that of administrative officers, and their initial salary was at least 50% lower than
that of administrative officers. Therefore, among approximately 1700 judges and prosecutors in
1904, only 21% had a bachelor’s degree. A vast majority of judicial officers were graduates of
private law schools who had to take the employment examination.
The popularity of an attorney as an occupation for university graduates was far lower.
For instance, among approximately 2000 attorneys in 1912, only 175 held a bachelor’s degree.
This domination of graduates of private schools, who had been constantly discriminated against
by the government, appears to have contributed, at least partly, to the development of the
traditional professional ideology that defines themselves as zaiya houso or lawyers in the
opposition to the government, as opposed to judges and prosecutors who had been called zaicho
houso or lawyers in the government. When attorneys obtained autonomy from the government
during the reform after the Second World War, they enshrined this professional ideology in
Article 1 of the Practicing Attorneys Act of 1949 by defining the mission of the attorney as “the
protection of fundamental human rights and the realization of social justice,” 13 which was
contrary to the reality that most of them were handling nothing other than ordinary civil cases for
paying clients.
Ultimately, the privileges given to Imperial University graduates sowed the seed of
gakureki shugi (the education-based elitism in Japan). This elitism, however, applied only to
bureaucratic careers until the end of the Second World War. In spite of the fact that the content
of legal education appeared to be more clearly related to legal professions than to public
13
PRACTICING ATTORNEYS A CT art. 1 (1949).
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administration, 14 the professional education of legal professions, particularly attorneys, never
became a major consideration of the government.
The purpose of legal education at national universities was further removed from the
training of legal professions when Kyoto Imperial University was established in 1897, and the
College of Law was established there. After Japan had won the Sino-Japanese War in 1894-95,
the government felt the need to train students who would work in expanding the economy and
managing the colonies. This purpose was clearly identified by the President of the University
when the Kyoto Imperial University was established and it had a lasting influence for more then
forty years.
Table 5 indicates the different compositions of occupational categories among law
graduates of the Tokyo and Kyoto Imperial Universities in 1939. Tokyo produced a far larger
number of bureaucrats, judicial officers, and military officers, while only Kyoto produced
attorneys and those who worked in foreign countries, mainly Manchuria.
In the meantime, colleges of law and letters had been established in the two new Imperial
Universities in Tohoku and Kyushu. Also, in 1920, eight of the private schools were formally
granted the status of university. 15
Because of its supervisory status, the College of Law of Tokyo Imperial University set a
model curriculum of legal education. Table 4 indicates the amazing resilience of the initial
model. In spite of its main purpose of training administrators, the curriculum was basically
designed to provide doctrinal training in roppou or the six basic codes of Constitutional Law,
Civil Law, Commercial Law, Civil Procedure, Criminal Law, and Criminal Procedure. Eighty
years later, the same basic structure is maintained.
It is interesting to note that the assumption seems to be that those who did well in the
curriculum, which apparently better fit legal professions, would also do well as administrators.
Table 7 clearly indicates similarities of knowledge expected of administrators and judicial
officers. This point will be taken up again later.
14
See infra Table 4.
15
See infra Table 6.
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Returning to the 1920s, Table 8 indicates that the largest number of law graduates was
already going to private companies. Thus, the main function of legal education was further
removed from training of legal professions.
Since the law faculties of Imperial Universities also trained future high-ranking
bureaucrats, who were considered the most prestigious people, business corporations also gave
the highest position to law graduates from Imperial Universities.
Table 9 indicates salary
differences at a major company among graduates from different types of schools. Even when
compared to Imperial University graduates from other fields, law graduates were particularly
coveted. Therefore, the status of Imperial University Law Faculties, particularly that of Tokyo
Imperial University was firmly established both within the government and within big business.
In other words, Tokyo Imperial University Law Faculty became the institution to train the power
elite in both the public and private sectors in pre-war Japan.
Thus, the main task in the following three sections is to examine to what extent this role
of elite reproduction of legal education has been maintained. Since the number of law students,
however, radically increased after the Second World War, 16 it has become far less meaningful to
talk about all law graduates in Japan. The focus of this paper will still be the University of
Tokyo Law Faculty and, to a lesser extent, Kyoto University Law Faculty.
B.
The Elite in Japanese Politics
Arguing that “the center of initiative and decision has shifted from the Congress to the
executive,” 17 Mills argued that fifty-odd men of the executive branch of the government “are
now in charge of the executive decisions made in the name of the United States of America.”
They include “the President, the Vice President, and the members of the cabinet; the head men of
the major departments and bureaus, agencies and commissions, and the members of the
Executive Office of the President, including the White House staff.” 18 Since top bureaucratic
members within the ministries will be discussed separately, what we should discuss as Japanese
counterparts here will be the Prime Minister and cabinet members.
16
See infra Table 10.
17
M ILLS, supra note 4, at 229, 231.
18
Id. at 231.
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We, however, must note that there is an increasingly strong argument that the formal
powers of the Prime Minister and cabinet members are severely constrained. 19
Under the
parliamentary cabinet system, the Prime Minister and the cabinet have power to propose
legislative bills. Those legislative bills and policies are formulated by ministries and other
agencies, and the cabinet ministers who head them. The Prime Minister, however, has enemies
within his own party. Richardson argues that “[u]nder LDP [Liberal Democratic Party] rule, the
prime minister was the temporary head of an intraparty, interfactional coalition. ... Factional
competition was consequently pervasive ... . Exposure to faction and policy group challenges
made him abnormally vulnerable.
The result was limited, sometimes weak leadership.” 20
Moreover, the Prime Minister and his cabinet ministers have to rely on bureaucrats whom they
are supposed to lead. Richardson says that “[b]ecause the cabinet and prime minister have only a
limited staff, much of the policy research needed by the central organs of government is
performed within the bureaucracy. ... In theory, Japanese cabinet ministers have the authority to
decide on internal personnel assignments ... But the matter of control over appointments is hard
to trace.” 21
Nevertheless, we may still argue that, at least institutionally, the Prime Minister and
cabinet ministers occupy key positions. No important decisions can become final until they
decide, approve, or, at least, consent. The way they use that position may be contingent upon
various conditions. For instance, Richardson acknowledges that different prime ministers left
different marks on the Japanese political landscape depending on their respective priorities and
leadership, though none of them was able to realize even half of their priorities. 22 In short, prime
ministers and cabinet members may still be called the elite of Japanese politics, though they do
not necessarily command. Therefore, we will examine how legal education, particularly that at
the University of Tokyo, is related to production of Prime Ministers and cabinet ministers.
Table 11 indicates the educational background of all the Prime Ministers since 1946. Of
the twenty-one Prime Ministers, fourteen are law graduates. Of the fourteen law graduates, nine
19
See BRADLEY RICHARDSON, JAPANESE DEMOCRACY 97-108 (1997).
20
Id. at 98.
21
Id. at 102.
22
See id. at 106-107.
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are graduates of the Tokyo Law Faculty, and only one is from the Kyoto Law Faculty. Four
Prime Ministers are graduates of private law faculties, including the present Prime Minister.
The dominant position of Tokyo Law Faculty is due to the fact that high-ranking
bureaucrats used to be the main and most stable source of new Diet members for the LDP, which
controlled the government from 1955 to 1993. Five Tokyo Law Faculty graduates during that
period were former high-ranking bureaucrats, and the sole Kyoto Law Faculty graduate was also
a former high-ranking bureaucrat.
This dominant position of the Tokyo Law Faculty appeared to fade quickly after the
LDP’s loss in 1993. While two of the four Prime Ministers since 1993 are law graduates, none
of them is a Tokyo Law Faculty graduate or a former bureaucrat. In this sense, the recruiting of
the political elite in Japan appears to have become more diverse.
Turning to lesser members of the political elite, namely cabinet ministers, Table 12
examines changing patterns of their educational background over forty years. In the Kishi
cabinet in 1957, fourteen out of the twenty ministers were law graduates, and twelve of them
were Tokyo Law Faculty graduates. The Fukuda cabinet in 1976 had nearly the same proportion
of law graduates, but the proportion of Tokyo Law Faculty graduate had declined slightly. The
Hashimoto cabinet further reduced not only the number of Tokyo Law Faculty graduates, but
also of law graduates in general. Only eight out of the twenty-two ministers are law graduates,
and there are only four Tokyo Law Faculty graduates. While graduates of Tokyo Law Faculty
are still the largest group, their lead is very slim.
These trends, of course, do not deny the fact that law graduates, particularly those of
Tokyo Law Faculty, have long dominated conservative politics in postwar Japan. For instance,
Table 13 shows that in the first half of the postwar period when former bureaucrats were a main
source of Diet members, University of Tokyo graduates, particularly those of the Law Faculty,
really dominated. Nevertheless, the situation seems to have changed.
On the other hand, it is interesting to note that Tables 13 and 14 show that proportions of
law graduates did not decline much over forty years. What declined drastically is the proportion
of Tokyo and Kyoto Law Faculty graduates. In contrast, graduates of law faculties other than
Tokyo and Kyoto radically increased. This change may reflect the fact that more people have
received legal education in postwar Japan than in prewar Japan as we have seen in Table 10.
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This might imply a new, less elitist function of legal education in postwar Japan. We will take
up this issue again later.
Other interesting findings in Tables 14 and 15 is the small and declining number of
attorneys among Diet members. Of course, given the fact that we have only approximately
16,000 attorneys for the 93 million people between twenty-five years of age and seventy-five
years of age, 23 4.3% of Diet members is an overrepresentation. Nevertheless, their number is too
small to be consequential.
Moreover, Table 16 indicates that a vast majority of that small number of attorneys
belongs to the Communist Party.
This reflects the fact that the candidate must have an
independent source of income if he is going to run in a district where his chance of winning is
slim. Another interesting finding in this table is that Communist Party is nearly as elitist as the
LDP in terms of the proportion of the University of Tokyo graduates, though their backgrounds
may be markedly different. Many Communist University of Tokyo graduates are attorneys,
while those at the LDP are former bureaucrats. 24
To summarize, while the dominant position of University of Tokyo Law Faculty is
steadily declining, the dominant position of law graduates has not declined much. This steadily
increasing presence of law graduates, however, has had little effect on the number of attorneys.
Therefore, it is uncertain that the content of legal education itself has made any significant
contribution to prepare them for political careers. It is at least clear that the significance of legal
education as a background for Diet members is not a professional one. We will discuss this point
later.
C.
The Elite in Japanese Bureaucracy
Mills wrote that the “United States has never and does not now have a genuine civil
service ... effectively above political party pressure,” 25 and that “[t]here is no civil-service career
that is secure enough, there is no administrative corps that is permanent enough, to survive a
23
A SAHI SHINBUN, 1997 JAPAN A LMANAC 48, 228 (1997).
24
See infra Table 11.
25
M ILLS, supra note 4, 239.
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change-over of political administration in the United States.” 26 Hence, professional bureaucrats
are not at the center of decision-making.
Japanese bureaucracy appears to be opposite.
Johnson argues that “the postwar
bureaucracy ... has had fewer rivals for power [comparable to the military and the monopoly
capitalists] than did the prewar bureaucracy,” and that “[t]he bureaucracy does not rule in a
vacuum in Japan, but it does hold an ascendant position and is likely to continue to do so.” 27
Moreover, careers of bureaucrats do not stop when they leave the government. Their “[lives]
begin[] at fifty” when they retire. 28 They can move to leading business corporations, industrial
associations, semi-governmental organizations, or to politics. 29 Therefore, some bureaucrats can
reach top positions in at least two sectors, either in bureaucracy and business or in bureaucracy
and politics. If so, it is high-ranking bureaucrats who connect the three sectors of the elite in
Japan.
Such a view of Japanese bureaucracy has also come under increasing criticism recently.
For instance, Reed argues that “it is autonomy, not power, that the bureaucrats are protecting.” 30
Allinson argues that “[a]fter the early 1970s, the majority of Keidanren’s [Federation of
Economic Organizations] leaders consisted of business managers who had served their entire
careers in the private sector,” and that “lifelong politicians came to dominate the highest ranks of
the party [LDP].” 31
Furthermore, “firms hire bureaucrats to increase their influence in the
bureaucracy,” 32 rather than the bureaucracy influencing firms.
On the other hand, “the two great powers of the bureaucracy are the initiating of
legislation and the compilation of the budget.” 33 How bureaucrats can use these institutional
26
Id. at 241.
27
JOHNSON, supra note 10, at 126, 140.
28
Id. at 142.
29
See id. at 141-56; SUGIMOTO, supra note 7, at 196-98.
30
STEVEN R. REED, M AKING COMMON SENSE OF JAPAN 120 (1993).
31
Allinson, supra note 9, at 29.
32
Margaret A. McKean, State Strength and the Public Interest in POLITICAL DYNAMICS IN
CONTEMPORARY JAPAN 82 (Gary D. Allinson & Yasunori Sone eds., 1993).
33
JOHNSON, supra note 10, at 122.
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powers may vary under different circumstances, as in the case of the exercise of power by the
Prime Minister or cabinet. Nevertheless, legislation and the budget cannot be introduced into the
Diet without their work in most cases, and we may still argue that they still belong to the elite in
Japan, if not the power elite like their predecessors in pre-war Japan.
It was said in the 1980s that different careers after graduation were ranked by law
students at the University of Tokyo as follows:34
Special 1:
Those who pass both the Law Examination and the examination for fasttrack career bureaucrats within four years and join the Finance Ministry
(including the Bank of Japan), the Ministry of Home Affairs (in charge of
local governments), the Ministry of International Trade and Industry
(MITI), or National Police Agency;
Special 2:
Those who are asked by their professors to remain in the Faculty as
research associates (joshu);
Special 3:
Those who pass the Law Examination within four years;
Special 4:
Those who rank within the top 20 on the examination for fast-track
bureaucrats;
Second rate:
Others who somehow manage to join the government; and
Bottom:
Those who intend to go to the private sector from the beginning.
If this is true, the legacy of the historical origin of the University of Tokyo Law Faculty is
still very strong. An anecdote was reported recently that when University of Tokyo law students
ask career plans of classmates, they ask “The Law Exam (Shiho)? National Civil Servant Class
One (Koku Ichi)? Then, the private sector (minkan)?”35 implying the descending order of the
respectability of those three careers among themselves. It is particularly interesting to note that
they somehow place themselves on the side of the government already and mention business
careers as something to which they have to go out of their more proper realm.
Another
interesting aspect of this anecdote is that the prestige of the legal profession among University of
34
See RYUKICHI KITAGAWA & JUN KAINUMA , NIPPON NO ERITO [THE ELITE OF JAPAN] 125 (1985).
35
Contemporary Personality of Tokyo Law Faculty Students (in Japanese), AERA 14 (June 2 1997).
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Tokyo law students appears to have markedly improved from that before the war. We will take
up this point later.
Tables 17 and 18 indicate how firmly the domination by Tokyo Imperial University law
graduates was established before the war. Higher civil service positions existed virtually only
for them. Moreover, those Tokyo Imperial University law graduates were particularly well
represented in the two key ministries, namely, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Home
Affairs. The question is how the situation has changed since then.
Table 19 shows that as far as bureaucrats in top positions of ministries are concerned, the
situation has not changed at all in 50 years after the war. The proportion of law graduates and of
Tokyo law graduates has not essentially changed. All the top bureaucrats at the Finance Ministry
and the Home Affairs Ministry in 1995 were Tokyo law graduates.
The upper half of Table 20 indicates the situation in the mid-1970s. The proportion of
Tokyo graduates was largest among top bureaucrats, followed by middle-management
bureaucrats, and was lowest among new recruits. It is safe to assume that an overwhelming
majority of them were law graduates. Moreover, even among the new recruits, more than half of
them were Tokyo graduates, and their proportions were larger in more powerful and, hence,
popular ministries and agencies, such as Finance, Home Affairs, International Trade and
Industry, and Police.
Kyoto graduates were far distant seconds in all categories. There were none of them
among top bureaucrats at the Finance Ministry. In this sense, too, the legacy of the different
historical backgrounds of the establishment of Tokyo and other national universities remained
very strong. It is often said that once they are hired, members of the same entering class are
promoted at the same speed until one of them becomes a Vice-Minister.
Then, all other
members retire. The data, however, indicate that differences already appear at the middlemanagement level. Tokyo law graduates are promoted faster than others are.
The second table in Table 19 gives us a glimpse of the main reason for this overwhelming
domination by Tokyo graduates. Among those who passed the civil service examination for fasttrack positions, only 25% were Tokyo graduates.
Given that Tokyo is the largest national
university and attracts the brightest high school students, this proportion is not too surprising.
More surprising is that the proportion of Tokyo graduates doubles among those who were
actually hired. Simply passing the civil service examination does not guarantee actual hiring.
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Actual hiring is determined by the personnel department of each ministry or agency. Applicants
must visit the personnel department of the ministry or agency, which they wish to join.
Therefore, the data imply that personnel departments still favor Tokyo graduates when they
finally decide hiring. After all, hiring officials themselves are likely to be Tokyo graduates, and
applicants from Tokyo can expect a friendly reception, while those from other schools cannot.
Those from other schools may even hesitate to visit ministries and agencies where there are no
former graduates of their school in the personnel department, and limit their job search to less
prestigious ministries and agencies from the beginning.
It is likely that such personnel practices favor Tokyo law graduates throughout their
careers. In fact, Tokyo graduates can work in an environment, which is almost an alumni
organization of the University of Tokyo and can feel more confidence in their future, whereas
those from other universities are constantly reminded that they are minorities and do not have the
same supporting networks among elite bureaucrats. The data at the bottom of Table 19 show the
new recruits of the Finance Ministry who will join the ministry next year. The Ministry proudly
announced that the proportion of Tokyo law graduates is smaller than before, that graduates of
private universities were hired, and that even two women were included. Nevertheless, Tokyo
graduates including those from outside the Law Faculty still account for nearly two thirds of the
total number, which is not different from the situation in 1976. It should be clear from these data
that the production of bureaucratic elite is still overwhelmingly carried out by the University of
Tokyo.
Then, how about the domination by law graduates? Table 21 indicates the proportions of
the three main fields of specialization among the new recruits in 1981 as measured by types of
examinations they took. The largest group was always the one who took the examination for
houritsu-shoku or law-related staff. The most extreme example is the Ministry of Home Affairs
where fourteen out of the fifteen new recruits were in that category. The group of keizai-shoku
or economy-related staff came close at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, but
remained a distant second at most other ministries. Oddly enough, the group of gyosei-shoku or
administration-related staff is smallest in spite of its apparent expertise in administration.
These data imply that they are not exactly hired for their expertise in law, economics, or
administration. A good example is the Finance Ministry. Eighteen of its twenty-seven new
recruits were hired as law-related staff. This does not mean, however, that they were hired as
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professional lawyers. It is more accurate to say that they were hired as human resources, which
are smart and trustworthy enough to receive a series of on-the-job training designed to mold and
grow them as generalists who can efficiently handle any assignment. Such on-the-job training at
the Finance Ministry goes as follows:36
First to third years:
Recruits spend most of their time in the corridors of the Diet.
Their main job is to find what Diet members are going to question
so that the Finance Minister and top bureaucrats can prepare
answers. Recruits are expected to learn during these first years
how to handle information, what politicians do, and how the Diet
works.
Third to fourth years: These one-time recruits are sent to foreign or domestic universities
to learn economic theories and obtain other specialized knowledge.
Fifth to sixth years:
On returning, they work as chief sub-department heads
(kakaricho).
Seventh year:
The department heads next work as heads of local tax offices while
they are still only 28 or 29 years old.
They supervise older
subordinates and deal with local leaders, who treat them often as
the guest of honor. As the heads of local tax offices, they are also
expected to learn leadership.
Eighth year:
They return to the Ministry headquarters as assistant department
head (kacho hosa). These now seasoned bureaucrats are expected
to show their ability in defending the turf of the Ministry by
arguing against bureaucrats of the same rank from other ministries,
in drafting bills and designing policies, in negotiating, and in
obtaining a broader perspective.
A similar pattern exists in the Ministry of Home Affairs. 37 After the elite bureaucrats
have familiarized themselves with the culture in the Ministry, they are sent to prefectural
36
See KITAGAWA & KAINUMA , supra note 34, at 149-151.
37
See id. at 150-51.
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governments for two to three years. They return to the Ministry headquarters as sub-department
heads. In the seventh or eighth year, they are sent to prefectural governments as heads of key
departments such as general affairs, tax, and planning for two years. They return to the Ministry
headquarters as assistant department heads. Every ministry or agency, including the National
Police Agency, where the speed of promotion of elite recruits is faster than other ministries and
agencies, has its own pattern of training, rotation, and promotion.
Since nearly every promotion is coupled with relocation or a change of departments, what
is expected of elite bureaucrats is not specialization or technical expertise. This point can be
better understood by examination of the different status of clerical (jimukan) and technical staff
(gikan).
The national civil service examination includes categories designed to recruit
specialists, including scientists. Those technical staff members include holders of master’s and
doctoral degrees or even medical doctors, such as those in the Health Ministry. Technical staff
members, however, rarely reach top positions. Table 22 shows an example of the Ministry of
Agriculture in 1981. The Vice-Minister and a majority of bureau chiefs were clerical staff. Most
of the heads of the most important departments within each bureau were also clerical staff. It is
safe to assume that a vast majority of those clerical staff were initially recruited as law-related
staff. 38
The struggle between clerical staff and technical staff was exposed in the aftermath of the
HIV infection of hemophiliacs in Japan by contaminated blood products. 39
In this scandal
involving the Health Ministry, medical profession, and pharmaceutical industry, one Ministry
official, one medical doctor, and three past and Present presidents of the largest blood products
manufacturer were arrested and indicted for criminal negligence causing death.
When the
scandal broke, the Health Minister formed a task force to search for documents relating to the
case, the existence of which the Ministry officials had denied. The task force, headed by the
Vice-Minister, who was a clerical staff member, found crucial documents including those of a
former head and a medical doctor of the Department of Biologic and Antibiotics in the Bureau of
Pharmacological Affairs. The indicted Ministry official was also a medical doctor. While the
38
See infra Table 20.
39
Koseisho no Hanzai: Yakugai [Crime of the Health Ministry: Injury by Medication], M AINICHI
SHINBUNSHA SHAKAIBU YAKUGAI EIZU SHUZAIHAN 57-77, 92-97 (1997) [hereinafter “Koseisho no Hanzai”].
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responsibility of the Bureau certainly requires medical and pharmacological expertise, the
Bureau Chief had always been a clerical staff person and the Head of the Planning Department,
considered most important among the departments in the Bureau, was also a position reserved
for clerical staff. Nevertheless, the former Bureau Chief who was responsible for the final
decisions of the Bureau escaped investigation. Therefore, some observe that clerical staff of the
Health Ministry seized this scandal as an opportunity to further their already dominant position
in the Ministry. 40
In any event, it must be clear now that law graduates are not hired by the bureaucracy as
professional lawyers, nor for their legal expertise. Ever since the College of Law of Tokyo
Imperial University was designated as the central institution to train future elite bureaucrats, law
faculties have always been the most competitive of nearly all universities. Law graduates are
hired essentially because they are considered to be smarter than others. In that sense, legal
education, particularly that at the University of Tokyo, is playing a decisive role in the
reproduction of the elite in Japanese bureaucracy.
It does not mean, however, that legal
education per se is directly related to the reproduction of elite. Therefore, legal education of elite
bureaucrats has not contributed, for instance, to the advancement of the rule of law in Japan.
It is widely known that extra-legal measures called administrative guidance (gyosei
shido) are the main instruments for the elite to carry out their policies. 41 Of course, an enormous
number of statutes are enacted every year, and a vast majority of them concern activities of the
bureaucracy.
Nevertheless, the statutes are essentially designed as instruments of the
bureaucracy, and rarely provide the public with legal rights to challenge the bureaucracy. In
other words, the rule by law, not the rule of law, still prevails in Japan.
In any event, as far as the elite in the bureaucracy are concerned, we have found that the
situation has not changed between the pre-war and post-war periods. The bureaucratic elite are
largely reproduced by legal education at the University of Tokyo. This conclusion is further
supported by Tables 23 and 24. Table 23 indicates where law graduates of the University of
Tokyo went in 1981. Table 24 shows the same information for 1997 in comparison with Kyoto
40
Eric A. Feldman, Deconstructing the Japanese HIV Scandal, Japan Policy Research Institute Working
Paper No. 30 (1997).
41
See FRANK K. UPHAM, LAW AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN POSTWAR JAPAN 174-176 (1987). For a contrary
view that Japanese governmental agencies have been forced to use administrative guidance because they were not
given legally enforceable instruments, see also JOHN OWEN HALEY, A UTHORITY WITHOUT POWER 139-41 (1991).
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and Kobe Universities. One can clearly see that excluding the Judicial Research and Training
Institute, the largest individual employers of Tokyo law graduates were government ministries
and agencies or other organizations closely related to the government, such as the Nippon
Telephone and Telegraph, the Bank of Japan, and the Industrial Bank of Japan. Though it is
indicated that five graduates of Kyoto Law Faculty were hired by the Office of Prime Minister in
1997, the Office is actually divided into several agencies including the National Police Agency,
so it is inconsequential. It is surprising that while Kyoto was the second Imperial University, and
is definitely the second most competitive national university in Japan, the distance between the
two law faculties with regard to the reproduction of elite bureaucrats is staggering.
In a ranking of the difficulty of entrance examinations of national and municipal law
faculties, which gave a score of seventy-three to the highest-ranked Tokyo Law Faculty and a
score of fifty to the lowest-ranked law faculty, Kyoto was ranked second with a score of seventy,
Osaka was third with a score of sixty-nine, and Kobe, Tokyo Metropolitan, Nagoya, and
Hitotsubashi were jointly ranked fourth with a score of sixty-five, closely followed by Kyushu
with a score of sixty-four. 42
The difference between the first and fourth most competitive
universities in, say, the United States, may be negligible, but it is not so in Japan. For instance,
no national ministry or agency is a major employer of Kobe graduates. Moreover, Table 24
implies that the differences in institutional status among Tokyo, Kyoto, and Kobe Law Faculties
have been deliberately maintained by the Ministry Education. Tokyo has the largest number of
students and faculty members, Kyoto is allowed to have only two-thirds of what Tokyo has, and
Kobe and other national law faculties are allowed to have even less. Since national universities
are part of the Education Ministry, any expansion or reform must be authorized by the Ministry.
No national university is allowed to out compete Tokyo on any account. As long as the present
system of recruiting elite bureaucrats remains, the position of the University of Tokyo Law
Faculty will remain unassailable.
42
A SAHI SHINBUNSHA, DAIGAKU RANKING ‘96 [UNIVERSITY RANKING ‘96] 226 (1996).
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D.
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The Elite in Business
The most conspicuous players of the pre-war Japanese business were zaibatsu, namely,
conglomerates controlled by family-owned holding companies. 43 The post-war economic reform
dissolved them, and individual capitalists lost importance as the elite in Japanese business.
Institutional shareholding replaced shareholding by families.
Gerlach calls the social
organization of Japanese business in the post-war period “alliance capitalism.”
44
While 95% of
stocks in the United States is controlled by market investors, including both individuals and
institutions, 70-75% of stocks in Japan is controlled by stable investors, namely, affiliated
companies. 45 Affiliated companies mutually hold stocks of each other. The proportion of stocks
owned by top-ten reciprocal shareholders is nearly 20% among the top sixty companies in Japan,
compared to less than 1% in U.S. companies in general. 46 In this alliance economy, the most
powerful business elite are the top executives who determine institutional investment in affiliated
companies, and form and maintain alliances, though most of them are not major share-holders
individually. 47 Therefore, the elite may be considered the Japanese counterparts of what Mills
called the chief executives. 48
We collected information on the presidents of the largest corporations in 1975 and 1995.
The purpose was to examine what schools dominate top positions of top companies, and whether
any changes have happened recently. Table 25 presents such information for 1975 and 1995.
The top companies in 1975 were those having capital of more than 30 billion yen, while those in
1995 had where ones having capital of 100 billion yen or more. It is clear that Tokyo law
graduates were the largest group in both years if presidents were counted for each single faculty.
Kyoto law graduates were a far distant second. If you combine Tokyo law graduates with other
Tokyo graduates, they control half of the largest companies in Japan. While going to private
43
See generally Edward J. Lincoln, The Showa Economic Experience, in SHOWA: THE JAPAN OF
HIROHITO (Carol Gluck & Stephen R. Graubard eds., 1992).
44
See generally M ICHAEL L. GERLACH, A LLIANCE CAPITALISM (1992).
45
See id. at 55.
46
See id. at 77-78.
47
See id. at 78-79.
48
See M ILLS, supra note 4, at 118-46.
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companies has been the least popular career choice for Tokyo law graduates from the very
beginning of the founding of Tokyo Law Faculty, they have still ended up controlling one-fifth
of the largest companies in Japan. Of course, the proportion of Tokyo law graduates at top
positions in corporations is far smaller than that in the government bureaucracy. In that sense,
like politicians, practice in corporations may be more democratic. Nevertheless, it is at least
clear that Tokyo Law Faculty has not relinquished its leading position in the business world, too.
We must note here that some of those Tokyo graduates may have not started their
corporate careers immediately after graduation. Some of them may have joined the government
bureaucracy, and have moved to companies as “descending from heaven” (amakudari). 49 It is
argued that the proportion of amakudari business leaders has decreased since the 1970s, and a
majority of more recent business leaders have spent their entire careers in the private sectors. 50
Nevertheless, as most vividly revealed in the scandal of HIV infection of hemophiliacs by the
three past and present presidents of Green Cross, the main manufacturer of blood products in
Japan, including a former bureau head of the Health Ministry, 51 amakudari does exist,
particularly in the more heavily regulated industries. Those amakudari bureaucrats function as
personal glue tying the elite in public and private sectors.
Business leaders can also form ties with leading conservative politicians. For instance,
each time the Prime Minister changes, several groups of business leaders are formed around the
new Prime Minister. They meet regularly, exchange views, and discuss policy issues. Table 26
shows the membership of one of such groups formed around Zenko Suzuki who was Prime
Minister between 1980 and 1982. Not a former bureaucrat, not a Tokyo graduate, and not even a
university graduate, he was not considered a particularly powerful Prime Minister. Nevertheless,
this group included top leaders of all four business organizations in Japan, namely, the Japan
Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Nippon Shoko Kaigisho), the Japan Federation of
Employers’ Associations (Nippon Keieisha Dantai Rengokai), the Federation of Economic
Organizations (Keizai Dantai Rengokai), and the Japan Association of Corporate Executives
(Keizai Doyukai).
49
See JOHNSON, supra note 10, at 141-56.
50
See A LLINSON, supra note 9, at 28-29.
51
See Koseisho no Hanzai, supra note 39, at 83-91.
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Again, one third of the members of these business organizations were Tokyo law
graduates and two-thirds were Tokyo University graduates. We should note that the proportion
of Tokyo graduates is larger in this circle, which is closer to the power center in Japan, than
among presidents of the largest corporations in general. We want to repeat that those Tokyo law
graduates were not hired by business corporations for their legal expertise. They were hired as
the smartest young people who were to be thoroughly inculcated by the corporate culture. There
is no evidence that their presence in the leadership of Japanese business has promoted a
corporate culture, which respects law.
E.
The Elite in Judiciary
Possibly because he wrote before the advent of the liberal activist Warren Court, Mills
did not pay any attention to the judiciary in his analysis of the American power elite. We may
also ignore the Japanese judiciary in our discussion of the elite in Japan. The Japanese judiciary
is hardly activist in the sense that it actively examines the legality and constitutionality of actions
of the other two branches of the government. 52
Nevertheless, such a passive judiciary has played a significant role in proclaiming the
legality and constitutionality of various arrangements produced by the elite in the legislative and
executive branches of the government and business. In other words, the judiciary role as a rear
guard for the conservative status quo is not insignificant, and it deserves our attention in that
sense. The institutional status of the Japanese judiciary was markedly improved during the postwar reform. The judiciary was separated from the Justice Ministry and was given the power of
judicial review. Judges became the best paid government employees. 53 These changes may have
caused some changes in the educational background of top members of the judiciary. Table 27
examines such changes. The top judges in 1954 had graduated from universities before the
Second World War. Tokyo law graduates formed the overwhelmingly largest group. The top
52
See generally Yasuhiro Okudaira, Forty Years of the Constitution and Its Various Influences, in
JAPANESE CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Percy R. Luney & Kazuyuki Takahashi eds., 1993). For a view that the Japanese
judiciary has been activist in its own sense, see Daniel H. Foote, Resolution of Traffic Accident Disputes and
Judicial Activism in Japan, 25 L. IN JAPAN (1995); Daniel H. Foote, Judicial Creation of Norms of Japanese Labor
Law, 43 UCLA L. REV. 635 (1996).
53
YASUO W ATANABE ET AL., TEXTBOOK GENDAI SHIHO [TEXTBOOK CONTEMPORARY JUDICIAL SYSTEM]
95 (1997).
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judges in 1995 were likely to have graduated around 1960. Tokyo law graduates still controlled
half of them, but Tokyo law’s proportion was much smaller than that in 1954.
The most striking change is the rise of Kyoto law graduates from 6.5% in 1954 to 35.6%
in 1995. The Chief Justice between 1985 and 1990 was a Kyoto law graduate, and the present
Chief Justice, who has just been appointed in October of this year, is also a Kyoto law graduate.
In the same month, another Kyoto law graduate has also been appointed as a Supreme Court
Justice, and still another Kyoto law graduate has been appointed the Chief Judge of a high court.
It appears that under the continuing domination of the administrative bureaucracy by Tokyo law
graduates, Kyoto law graduates have made inroads into the judiciary as if to compensate for their
inferior status in the more powerful branches of the government. If this is true, probably the key
person who opened many top positions in the judiciary to Kyoto law graduates may be Koichi
Yaguchi, a Kyoto law graduate who successively served as the head of the personnel bureau
(1970-76), Vice Secretary General (1976-77), Secretary General of the General Secretariat of the
Supreme Court (1980-82), Supreme Court Justice (1984-85), and ultimately, Chief Justice (198590).54 Since elite judges who repeatedly serve in the General Secretariat virtually appoint and
promote each other, 55 Yaguchi’s long reign may have assisted in the promotion of many Kyoto
law graduates in the judiciary.
The surge of Kyoto law graduates may, however, simply reflect relative proportions of
Tokyo and Kyoto graduates among those who passed the law examinations around 1960. Table
28 provides data pertinent to such a possibility. In 1961, the ratio of Kyoto graduates to Tokyo
graduates was only three to four, nearly identical to the ratio among top judges in 1995. Another
interesting finding is that graduates from other law faculties virtually disappeared from top
positions. Since the “All Others” category means Supreme Court Justices who were appointed
from outside law-related occupations, the subject here is the “Other/Law” category. We should
note that Chuo law graduates constituted one-third of those who passed of the law examination
in 1961. The virtual extinction of schools other than Tokyo and Kyoto from top positions may
have resulted from either the selective hiring process or the selective promotion process, or from
54
Nippon Minsu Houritsu Kyokai Shiho Seido Iinkai, ZEN SAIBANKAN KEIREKI SORAN [DIRECTORY OF
CAREERS OF A LL JUDGES] 16-17 (1990).
55
See Setsuo Miyazawa, Administrative Control of Japanese Judges, in LAW AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE
PACIFIC COMMUNITY 267-68 (Philip S.C. Lewis ed., 1994).
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both. In any event, the reproduction of elite judges has become the oligarchy of Tokyo and
Kyoto Law Faculties, in contrast to the monopoly of top positions in the administrative
bureaucracy by Tokyo Law Faculty.
However, given the most recent results of the law
examination in which Tokyo law graduates constituted one quarter of those who passed, 56 and
were more than double the number of Kyoto law graduates, it might be possible that Tokyo will
regain an overwhelmingly dominant status thirty years from now.
Incidentally, approximately 25,000 people took the law examination in 1996. The pass
rate was approximately 3%. The enormous popularity of the law examination totally contradicts
the accepted wisdom of Japanese legal culture. The popularity of the examination reflects the
difficulty in becoming an independent person in Japan where employers are likely to demand
total devotion to the interest of the organization. 57 One of the best ways to escape from such
organizations is to become an attorney.
F.
The Elite in Legal Academia
Tokyo law graduates form an overwhelming majority of elite bureaucrats. Their share is
smaller among elite politicians, elite business people, and elite judges, but they still form the
largest group of all. Then, what is the educational background of those who taught Tokyo law
graduates? Table 29 provides the pertinent statistics. Tokyo Law Faculty professors were
exclusively Tokyo law graduates until the 1970s.
The Tokyo Law Faculty started to hire
graduates of other schools in 1985. But, the proportion of those non-Tokyo graduates still
remains minuscule, at around only 5%. The recruitment and promotion of faculty members at
Tokyo Law Faculty was analyzed by Feldman. 58 University legal education in Japan is at the
undergraduate level. 59 A vast majority of junior faculty members were initially recruited as
joshu (research associates) immediately after finishing their undergraduate legal education. They
were promoted to jokyoju (associate professor) at either Tokyo or other universities after three
years. Those who entered the graduate program working toward masters and doctoral degrees
56
See infra Table 27.
57
See HALEY, supra note 41, at 111-14.
58
See Feldman, supra note 40.
59
See Yasuhei Taniguchi, Legal Education in Japan, in LAW AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE PACIFIC
COMMUNITY 298-302 (Philip S.C. Lewis ed., 1994).
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were considered second rate. Therefore, a vast majority of Tokyo Law Faculty professors do not
have any advanced degree. Nevertheless, they examine graduate students and grant graduate
degrees. The first graduate student who was hired as an associate professor directly from the
graduate program was Kahei Rokumoto.
revolution.
It happened in 1970, and was considered a
60
The similarity of this joshu system and the fast-track career system in the bureaucracy is
striking.
In fact, the joshu system has been justified by the need to compete against the
bureaucracy and retain bright young students in academia. The situation at Kyoto Law Faculty is
not much different. Kyoto’s inbreeding rate has always been slightly lower than that of Tokyo.
Nevertheless, graduates of non-Kyoto universities form only about 10% of Kyoto’s faculty.
Moreover, Kyoto also uses the joshu system. The similarity between Tokyo and Kyoto in this
respect is also striking. Tokyo and, to a lesser extent, Kyoto also control sizable proportions of
faculty members at other major national law faculties. Tokyo occupies more than 40% of all
faculty positions, while Kyoto occupies nearly 20%. Their shares have slightly declined in the
last twenty years. Nevertheless, they jointly control 63% of faculty positions in major national
law faculties. The rest (37%) is divided among the seven other national law faculties and other
schools. The share of Tokyo and Kyoto graduates is far smaller at major private law faculties.
The reason is obvious. Major private law faculties also tend to inbreed. It is particularly true at
the two most prestigious private law faculties, namely, Waseda and Keio. The proportion of
their graduates in the elite in Japan, however, is still negligible as we have seen above. In that
sense, these private law faculties can not be considered to be major players in the reproduction of
the elite in Japan.
II.
CONCLUSIONS
The following conclusions emerge from the analysis above:
1.
The educational institution, which is most strongly related to the reproduction of
the elite in Japanese society, is still the University of Tokyo. The University of
Tokyo is particularly overwhelming in the reproduction of the bureaucratic elite;
60
See YOTARO KONAKA, TODAI HOGAKUBU [TOKYO UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF LAW ] 9 (1978).
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2.
1 APLPJ 2: 26
Within the University of Tokyo, the Faculty of Law occupies an overwhelmingly
dominant status;
3.
It does not appear, however, that graduates of Tokyo and other law faculties are
recruited by government ministries and agencies exactly for their expertise in law.
They are more likely to be recruited as raw materials to be molded to their own
images;
4.
The domination by the University of Tokyo and its Law Faculty is strongest
among the highest level of the elite in Japan;
5.
The mobility of the bureaucratic elite to the political elite or to the business elite
has been declining, but is still recognizable. Hence, the old-boy networks of the
University of Tokyo and of former bureaucrats are still important parts of ties
connecting the elite in bureaucracy, politics, and business; and
6.
The elite law professors teaching in the Tokyo Law Faculty have themselves been
recruited in a manner similar to the recruitment of their students as elite
bureaucrats. They are recruited directly from the undergraduate program with a
guaranteed position in legal academia.
We may draw at least two implications from these conclusions. One is directly related to
the function of university legal education in Japan, and the other is related to a much broader
question of the stratification of Japanese society. Let us first discuss the former.
If our conclusion is correct that students of those elite law professors are not exactly
recruited for their legal expertise by the government and the business, an interesting question
arises with regard to the relevance of content of legal education provided by those elite law
professors.
It is as if students are ready to forget whatever they learned in the university
immediately after joining the government and the business, and to start to eagerly inculcate
themselves in the specific cultures of their respective employer.
It is, of course, arguable that university legal education more closely contributes a
theoretical understanding of law to those who eventually pass the national law examination to
become attorneys, judges, and prosecutors. Even that contribution, however, is debatable.
Masao Sorimachi, President of LEC, Inc., the largest cram school chain for students
preparing for the national law examination, the national civil service examination, and various
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other qualifying examinations, boasts that “Even Tokyo law students do not go to the university
these days. Why? That is because study at our school precedes study at the university.” 61 He
goes on to say that “Students from faculties other than law pass the examination rather faster
than law students, because the former do not have preconceptions,” and that “Many students pass
in their junior year recently ... [because] they start studying [at my school] when they are still in
high school.” 62
He is, of course, exaggerating. Nevertheless, his exaggeration is only slight. One of us
recently met a group of such students who passed the law examination in their junior year. They
were smart and confident, but could not tell which professors they liked most, and did not even
know where the law library was in their university. They had spent their time totally in their
cram schools.
Sorimachi’s chain is not the only one. Several national chains are competing. In this
situation, the name of the law faculty from which the student graduated does not mean much.
The name of his university should be considered mainly as a proof of the fact that he was smart
enough to pass the entrance examination to the faculty. For him, the real legal education is
provided by his cram schools.
The legal education at cram schools is followed by training at the Judicial Research and
Training Institute (“Institute”). Those who passed the law examination spend two years there as
Judicial Trainees with salaries paid by the government. The Institute is managed by the Supreme
Court, and education there is dominated by career judges who were carefully selected by the
General Secretariat to teach mainstream doctrines and forms of practice. Since judges, who are
called assistant judges in their first ten years, as well as prosecutors are directly recruited from
the Institute, judge-instructors in the Institute also serve as recruiters for the judiciary.
Therefore, in spite of the fact that the curriculum of university, legal education is
overwhelmingly geared toward the national law examination, its relevance in reality is highly
doubtful.
Moreover, professional training in the skill of lawyering is only provided in the Judicial
Research and Training Institute. It is done in the sixteen months in the middle of the two year
61
HIDEAKI KUBORI , HOKA SHAKAI E NIHON GA KAWARU [JAPAN IS BECOMING A LEGALIZED SOCIETY]
257 (1997).
62
Id. at 260.
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training at the Institute. Trainees spend their time at a local court, a local prosecutor’s office, and
a local bar association.
The university legal education offers nothing in areas such as
professional responsibility, professional ethics, lawyering, legal research and reasoning, and
clinical legal education.
Of course, unless most students are likely to become professional lawyers, offering such
courses would not make sense, and students would not take them seriously even if offered. In
that sense, the present situation may be rational. Nevertheless, it also means that there is no
place in Japan, which constantly examines issues, theories, and skills concerning lawyering
itself.
So, university legal education is both redundant and lacking when it trains legal
professionals as well as bureaucrats.
Furthermore, since theoretical legal education is provided at the undergraduate level to
those who have not studied any other subjects at the university level, it is virtually impossible to
have a wide variety of people in the legal profession who have academic backgrounds outside
law. In the increasingly more internationally connected legal market where increasingly more
sophisticated and innovative legal services are required, the Japanese legal profession and their
clients will suffer seriously.
What should be the future of legal education in Japan? Take a look at Table 10. Japan
now has more than 80,000 law students in each entering class, if those in composite faculties are
included. One logical possibility may be to professionalize their undergraduate education like
the undergraduate legal education in European countries.
Since that possibility, however,
requires that a majority of those 80,000 plus students pass the law examination, it is totally
unfeasible.
Another possibility may be to expand it as liberal arts education. Since political science
is always part of law faculty curriculum, this route of reform is more feasible. What is needed is
to remove highly technical courses of doctrinal analysis, and replace them with less technical
courses which simply outline major characteristics of the legal system and various fields of law
and examine their social, political, and economic implications. The aim would be to educate
students as wiser citizens and wiser consumers of legal services. Compared to the American
liberal arts education which teaches virtually nothing about law, such a law-related liberal arts
curriculum has merit. Moreover, since the government bureaucracy and the business are not
28
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recruiting law graduates as legal professionals, such a change will not cause a serious problem
for them.
If we can change the undergraduate legal education into more clearly liberal arts
education, the legal education aimed at educating students for law-related occupations should be
provided at a graduate level.
Technical, doctrinal courses should be elevated from the present
undergraduate level to this level, and they should be combined with courses on lawyering,
professional ethics, clinical education, etc. Internship and other field training should also be
incorporated into university legal education.
Table 30 indicates that Japan has a large number of law-related occupations other than
judges, prosecutors, and practicing attorneys.
Since judicial scriveners, administrative
scriveners, parent agents, and tax agents all include retired government employees who have
never taken qualifying examinations, we believe that they should better be conceived as
extensions of government agencies who supplement manpower and reduce the workload of
government agencies.
If they abolished such automatic admission of retired government
employees, the boundary between them and attorneys may be blurred or lowered like the reform
which has been going on in the United Kingdom, and the university legal education at the
graduate level can become the basis for those legal professionals, too.
Nevertheless, the number of such graduate programs will have to be far smaller than that
of undergraduate law faculties, which exist now. Otherwise, the situation will continue that only
a small proportion of students can have a realistic expectation to become legal professionals, so
that taking legal education at the graduate level will lose meaning for a majority of students.
Are there any institutions presently which might become bases of such graduate-level,
professional-oriented legal education? Yes, there are.
Several leading law faculties recently established graduate programs geared toward
experienced practitioners and government employees which grant master’s degrees in one or two
years. Since these graduate programs have no clear purposes, they are presently nothing more
than a mixture of various courses of continuing education. 63 Providing professional training in
universities at the graduate level will give a clearer function to these programs. The present law
examination for those who finished at least two years of university education consists of three
63
See Taniguchi, supra note 59, at 306-307.
29
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2: 30
parts: multiple choice, essay, and oral. Therefore, the multiple-choice portion, for instance,
should be waived for graduates of these programs.
Naturally, universities, which are allowed to have such graduate programs, will obtain a
tremendous advantage over other schools. Hence, most schools are likely to oppose establishing
of such graduate programs if those programs will be allowed to only a limited number of
universities.
Therefore, an alternative strategy may be to establish such practice-oriented graduate
legal studies programs totally anew. For instance, the Japan Federation of Bar Associations may
start a Japanese version of the accreditation done by the American Bar Association, and
encourage newer universities to establish programs designed to fit its conditions. If we can have
such programs, they will have another merit of destroying the present hierarchy among the
existing law faculties.
Even when universities wanted to collaborate with the Japan Federation of Bar
Associations, however, there is another source of resistance. That is the Supreme Court. It
might want to maintain its control over professional training.
For instance, when it was recently decided to increase the number of people who may
pass the law examination from 750 to 1000 from the next year, the Supreme Court proposed to
reduce the duration of traineeship from two years to one. Then, the Japan Federation of Bar
Associations tried to seize this opportunity and proposed that it would provide training for the
lost period by itself.
Both the Supreme Court and the Justice Ministry rejected the bar’s
proposal. Nevertheless, if the duration of professional education at the Judicial Research and
Training Institute is further reduced as the number to pass the law examination is further
increased, a real opportunity for the Bar’s taking over professional training would appear.
In any event, the legal profession is the only well-established profession in Japan, which
has failed to use universities for professional training of future members. Medical doctors,
dentists, and veterinarians all use universities. There is no reason for the legal profession not to
join them. Then, the Judicial Research and Training Institute will survive merely as a place for
on-the-job training of judges, and the basic professional training of the legal professions will be
set free from the central control, and become more flexible and diversified.
Let us now turn to the second implication of our conclusions, namely the stratification of
Japanese society.
30
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
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Entrants to the University of Tokyo are now dominated by graduates of private or
national high schools which combine the curriculum for three-year junior high school and that
for three-year high school in a unified curriculum, so that students are able to finish their high
school curriculum in their fifth year, and to devote their sixth year entirely for entrance
examinations to universities. In 1989, for instance, among the top twenty high schools of the
entrants of the University of Tokyo, only two were regular three-year public high schools. 64
Fifteen were private six-year high schools, and three were six-year national high schools.
Therefore, it is those students whose parents are wealthy enough to send them to such schools
who can most aspire to get into the University of Tokyo. The proportion of six-year high schools
has been constantly increasing.
It is well known that the average socio-economic status of parents of students at the
University of Tokyo is higher than that of parents of other university students. 65 Moreover, even
among those parents, the socio-economic status of parents of students who came from six-year
high schools is higher than that of parents of other students. Therefore, if the present elitereproduction system continues, students from higher socio-economic statuses will increase
further, and it becomes at least arguable that the policies and behaviors they carry out as
government bureaucrats, politicians, and corporate executives may simply reflect the ideology
and interests of their own socio-economic statuses.
Furthermore, since entrance examinations to those six-year high schools take place at the
end of elementary school, the competition to get into the University of Tokyo will take place
when children are still in their elementary schools. Therefore, in a survey of students in the
University of Tokyo in 1988, 78% of those who came from six-year high schools had gone to
some cram schools during their elementary-school years, 66 while only 48% of the entire student
body had gone to cram schools when they were in elementary schools.
These data imply that a higher socio-economic status provides students with a higher
possibility of joining the elite in Japan. If such a cycle continues, the existing social stratification
will not only be reproduced, but also be strengthened.
64
See A MANO, supra note 12, at 19-20.
65
See id.
66
See id. at 20.
31
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
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Then, the question is whether we should introduce some form of reverse affirmative
action, which prohibits government agencies to hire more than specified number of graduates
from one school or prohibits universities to admit more than a certain number of students from a
single high school. Such proposals have been regularly made and rejected.
Moreover, given the relatively smaller income inequalities in Japan than in other
developed countries, and the general lack of sensitivity to class structure or stratification, the
public may not care much about the reproduction of the elite within the elite themselves.
Furthermore, so long as the decision-making process in the government is transparent and the
government and business are held accountable for their behavior, the self-reproduction of the
elite by the elite probably will not cause serious problems to the public.
Therefore, the more meaningful reform from the perspective of the public is probably to
increase transparency and accountability of government agencies.
Though it has various
limitations which require improvement, the enactment of the Administrative Procedure Act in
1993 was a positive step toward that direction, and the expected enactment of the Freedom of
Information Act would be another step forward. Reformers of Japanese society must continue
their fight to strengthen the rule of law.
32
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TABLE 1
History of Legal Education and Legal Profession in Japan until the Postwar Reform
1868
•
•
Meiji Restoration.
Kaisei School was established.
1871
•
The Justice Ministry established its Law School. The purpose was to train personnel
for the Ministry, and French law was taught. Their own schools trained their own
staff. Students were provided with scholarships and were required to work in their
respective ministries for a certain period of years.
1872
•
Representation by attorneys in civil litigation was permitted, and the term daigennin
was introduced as the title for attorney, which meant a person to speak on behalf of
another. Under the Tokugawa judicial system before the Meiji Restoration, no
representation was allowed. No qualifications for daigennin, however, were
established.
1873
•
Formal regulations were established for representation by daigennin. Documents had
to be prepared by another person, daishonin (a person to write on behalf of another),
who was the predecessor of the present judicial scrivener (shiho shoshi).
1875
•
A special category of bengokan (defense officials) was created for state-appointed
criminal defenders.
1876
•
Aqualifying examination for attorneys (daigennin) was introduced.
1877
•
The University of Tokyo was established. It included the Faculties of Law, Letters,
Science, and Medicine. The Law Faculty taught Anglo-American law.
A special category of “attorney to the Ministry of Justice” was created to represent
both private parties and the government.
•
1879
•
•
1880
•
•
•
•
Graduates of the University of Tokyo Law Faculty obtained the privilege to practice
as attorney (daigennin) without taking a qualifying examination.
Tokyo University gave the first bachelor’s degrees to its graduates.
Senshu School (Anglo-American law; now Senshu University), Tokyo Law School
(French law; now Hosei University), and Meiji Law School (French law; now Meiji
University) were established.
The Tokyo University Law Faculty had 48 students.
Control of the examination for attorneys by the Ministry of Justice was strengthened.
Bar associations were established in jurisdictions of district courts.
The Criminal Code was promulgated and the right to counsel was incorporated.
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1882
•
•
1 APLPJ 2
The Tokyo University Law Faculty permitted students to write their graduation thesis
in the Japanese or Chinese language, instead of English.
Tokyo Professional School (Anglo-American law; now Waseda University) was
established.
1883
•
The Tokyo University abolished teaching in English, started to teach in Japanese, and
decided to adopt the German academic system.
1885
•
The Tokyo University Law Faculty absorbed the Department of Politics of the
Faculty of Letters and the Justice Ministry Law School, and became the Faculty of
Law and Politics.
The English Law School (Anglo-American law; now Chuo University) was
established.
•
1886
•
•
•
•
The Decree on Imperial University was issued.
The Tokyo University became the Imperial University with Colleges of Law, Letters,
Science, Medicine, and Engineering.
Private law schools were placed under the supervision of the President of the Imperial
University.
Kansai Law School (now Kansai University) was established.
1887
•
The Rules of Civil Service Examination and Apprenticeship were promulgated.
Graduates of Imperial University College of Law were exempted from the
examination.
1888
•
In return for strengthening control over the seven specially recognized private law
schools, the Education Ministry extended the privileges enjoyed by graduates of the
Imperial University College of Law to those graduates who had finished middle
school before entering law school. Since private law schools, however, also admitted
those who had not graduated from middle schools, the number of students who
enjoyed that privilege was limited.
1889
•
The Meiji Constitution was promulgated.
1890
•
The Imperial University College of Law decided to make Japanese law the central
purpose of education and made foreign law a supplementary subject.
Keio University and Nippon Law School (now Nippon University) were established.
The examination for recruiting judges and prosecutors was separated from that for
recruiting high-ranking administrative officials.
•
•
1891
1893
•
•
The Rules for Examination to Recruit Judges and Prosecutors were set. Graduates of
recognized private law schools were allowed to take the examination.
There were 1,521 judges, 481 prosecutors, and 1,345 attorneys.
•
The Decree on Recruiting Civil Servants was issued. Graduates of the Imperial
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
•
1 APLPJ 2
University College of Law were required to take only the second part of the two-part
examination for high-ranking civil servants, while graduates of private universities
were required to start from the first part. As a result, in 1896, for instance, while 42
out of 66 applicants from the Imperial University College of Law passed the
examination, only 8 out of 144 applicants from private law schools passed.
Furthermore, while graduates of national or municipal middle schools were exempt
from the examination for middle- and low-ranking civil servants, graduates of private
law schools did not even get that privilege.
The Attorneys Law was enacted. The new term bengoshi was introduced for
attorneys. A committee for annual qualifying examination was formed with judges,
prosecutors, and officials of the Justice Ministry, excluding attorneys. Holders of a
doctorate in law, graduates of the Imperial University College of Law, and its
predecessors could be admitted without examination.
1894-95• Sino-Japanese War.
1895
•
The Faculties of Law, Medicine, and Engineering were established in the Third High
School in Kyoto.
1897
•
Kyoto Imperial University was established. It included a College of Science and
Engineering. The Faculties of Law and Medicine of the Third High School became
the Colleges of Law and Medicine of Kyoto Imperial University in 1899, and the
Faculty of Letters in 1906.
1900
•
There were 1,244 judges, 473 prosecutors, and 1,590 attorneys.
1907
•
Tohoku Imperial University was established, and the Sapporo Agricultural School,
which was originally established in 1872 by the Hokkaido Development Agency and
was the second school in Japan to grant bachelor’s degrees, became its College of
Agriculture.
1910
•
•
Annexation of Korea.
There were 1,125 judges, 390 prosecutors, and 2,008 attorneys.
1914-18• The First World War.
1918
•
•
The Decree on University was issued. The establishment of private universities and
single-faculty colleges was allowed.
The College of Agriculture of Tohoku Imperial University became Hokkaido
Imperial University.
1919
•
The Decree on Imperial University was amended. Colleges became faculties.
1920
•
The establishment of several private universities was authorized, including Keio,
Waseda, Meiji, Hosei, Chuo, Nippon, and Doshisha. While they had already called
themselves universities before that time, they had not legally been treated as
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
•
universities by the government.
Tokyo University of Commerce (now Hitotsubashi University) was established. This
school was first established as the School of Commercial Law in 1875 and it later
became Tokyo High School of Commerce in 1887.
There were 1,134 judges, 570 prosecutors, and 3,082 attorneys.
1922
•
The Faculty of Law and Letters was established in Tohoku Imperial University.
1924
•
•
The Faculty of Law and Letters was established in Kyushu Imperial University.
Seoul Imperial University was established.
1925
•
The Security Maintenance Law was enacted.
1926
•
Students were prohibited from studying social sciences.
1927
•
Financial panic was caused by an austere fiscal policy.
1928
•
•
The Special High Police (Tokubetu Koto Keisatsu) was established to investigate
political crimes.
Taipei Imperial University and Osaka University of Commerce (now Osaka City
University) were established.
1929
•
The Great Depression started.
1930
•
There were 1,249 judges, 657 prosecutors, and 6,599 attorneys.
1931
•
•
The Manchuria Incident occurred.
Osaka Imperial University was established.
1933
•
Professor Yukitoki Takigawa of Kyoto Imperial University Law Faculty was purged
from the faculty.
A new Attorneys Law was enacted. The attorney’s role was extended to services
outside the court. Women were admitted. Apprenticeship similar to that for judges
and prosecutors was introduced. The prohibition of unauthorized practice, however,
was not introduced because attorneys opposed giving more power to the Justice
Minister.
•
•
1935
•
Professor Tatsukichi Minobe of Tokyo Imperial University Law Faculty was purged
from the faculty.
1937
•
The Federation of Economic Organizations (Keieisha Dantai Rengokai or Keidanren)
was established.
1939
•
•
The Law for Total National Mobilization was promulgated.
Nagoya Imperial University was established.
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1940
•
1 APLPJ 2
There were 1,541 judges, 734 prosecutors, and 5,498 attorneys.
1941-45• Pacific War.
1949
•
The present Attorneys Law was enacted as a member bill in the Diet. A national
organization of attorneys, the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA), was
established. The JFBA and local bar associations obtained independence from the
Justice Ministry in admission of members, rule-making, and disciplinary actions. The
qualifying examinations and apprenticeship systems for judges and prosecutors and
for attorneys were combined. The Justice Ministry took over responsibility for the
annual law examination (shiho shiken), and the Supreme Court took over
responsibility for the newly-created Judicial Research and Training Institute (Shiho
Kenshujo) where passers of the law examination spend two years as trainees with
salaries paid by the government. After finishing those two years, assistant judges are
recruited by the Supreme Court, prosecutors are recruited by the Justice Ministry, and
the rest of the graduates become attorneys.
1950
•
There were 1,533 judges (and 728 summary court judges), 930 prosecutors (and 743
assistant prosecutors), and 5,863 attorneys.
1985
•
There were 2,001 judges (and 739 summary court judges), 1,173 prosecutors (and
919 assistant prosecutors), and 13,159 private attorneys.
Sources: HOU- SHAKAIGAKU 191-93 (Nippon Houshakaigakkai ed., 1970); IKUO AMANO, KINDAI
NIPPON KOTO KYOIKU KENKYU [A STUDY OF HIGHER EDUCATION OF M ODERN JAPAN] (1989);
IKUO AMANO, GAKUREKI NO S HAKAISHI [SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE EDUCATION-BASED ELITISM ]
(1992); Richard W. Rabinowitz, The Historical Development of the Japanese Bar, 70 HARV.
L.R. 61 (1956); JOHN OWEN HALEY, AUTHORITY WITHOUT POWER, 103 (1991).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 2
Occupations of All Graduates of the Tokyo Imperial University College of Law in 1886-97
Administrative Officers
Judicial Officers
Private Business
Graduate Schools
Attorneys
School Teachers
Study Abroad
Members of Diet
Military
Other
Unknown
Total
375
300
187
153
114
55
18
9
3
37
118
1369
Source: MAKOTO ASO, NIPPON NO GAKUREI ERITO [THE EDUCATION-BASED ELITE IN JAPAN] 85
(1991).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 3
Occupations of All Graduates of Major Private Law Schools Surveyed in 1897
Private Companies
Governmental
High-Ranking Officials
Judicial Officials
Other
Chuo
96
Waseda
68
Meiji
55
45
134
252
15
30
71
19
126
95
7
14
3
143
4
24
1
190
3
23
30
26
Unknown
1326
317
1068
Total
2039
570
1585
Educational
Self-Employed
Attorneys
Other
Other
Source: IKUO AMANO, GAKUREKI NO SHAKAISHI [SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE EDUCATION-BASED
ELITISM ] (1992).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 4
Subjects Taught in 1893 and 1974-75
Department of Law
Imperial University
September 1893
Faculty of Law
University of Tokyo
1974-75
Subject
No. of Examinations
Subject
Constitutional Law
1
Constitutional Law I, II
Comparative Constitutional Law
Civil Law
3
Civil Code I, II, III, IV
Commercial Law
1
Commercial Code I, II, III
Civil Procedure
1
Civil Procedure I, II, III
Judicial Administration
Criminal Law
1
Criminal Law I, II
Criminal Procedure
1
Criminal Procedure
Criminology
Legal Medicine
Public International Law
1
International Law I, II
International Organizations
Private International Law
1
Private International Law
Administrative Law
2
Administrative Law I, II, III
Labor Law
Intangible Property Rights
Tax Law
Industrial Law
Roman Law
1
Roman Law
Legal History
1
History of Legal Science
Occidental Legal History
Japanese Legal History
Oriental Legal History
Jurisprudence
1
Philosophy of Law
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
Sociology of Law
Anglo-American Law I, II
French Law I, II
German Law I, II
Soviet Law
Chinese Law
Theory of Comparative Law
Foreign Languages
3
English, German, and French
(Political Process—not offered in 1893)
European Political History
Political Science
Japanese Political & Diplomatic History
International Politics
American Political & Diplomatic History
Public Administration
Comparative Government
History of Political Theory
History of Japanese Political Theory
History of International Politics
Asian Political & Diplomatic History
Marxist Principles of Economics
Modern Economic Theory
Public Finance
Economic Policy
Social Policy
Accounting
Sources: Takayoshi Yoroi, The Faculty of Law at Imperial Universities and “National-Social
Demand,” 22 HOU- SHAKAIGAKU 157 (1970) (in Japanese); Haruo Abe, Education of the Legal
Profession in Japan, in THE JAPANESE LEGAL S YSTEM 579-81 (1976).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 5
Law Graduates of Tokyo and Kyoto Imperial Universities in 1939
Administrative Officers
Judicial Officers
Attorneys
Graduate Students
Educational
Bank or Company
Foreign Government or Company
Military
Other (including Unknown)
Total
Tokyo
151
24
0
0
4
360
0
93
11
Kyoto
12
5
11
0
1
394
17
11
59
642
512
Source: Takayoshi Yoroi, The Faculty of Law at Imperial Universities and “National-Social
Demand,” 22 HOU- SHAKAIGAKU 147 (1970).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 6
Universities in 1920
National University
Tokyo Imperial University
Kyoto Imperial University
Tohoku Imperial University
Kyushu Imperial University
Hokkaido Imperial University
Tokyo College of Commerce
Municipal College
Osaka Prefectural Medical College
Aichi Prefectural Medical College
Private University*
Keio Gijuku University
Waseda University
Meiji University
Hosei University
Chuo University
Nippon University
Kokugakuin University
Doshisha University
Year Became
Imperial University or College
1886
1897
1907
1910
1918
1920
With Law
With Law
With Law and Letters
With Law and Letters
Without Law
Without Law
Year Became College
1919
1920
Year Called “University”
1890
1902
1903
1903
1903
1903
1906
1912
With Law
With Law
With Law
With Law and Letters
With Law
With Law
With Law
With Law
* Note: Private universities were formally recognized as universities in 1920.
Source: Tatsuo Maeda, Japanese Capitalism and Universities and Law Faculties (in Japanese), 22
HOU- SHAKAIGAKU 114-17 (1970).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 7
Required Subjects of High-Ranking Civil Servant Examination in 1929
Administrative Officers
Constitutional Law
Administrative Law
Civil Law
Economics
Diplomats
Constitutional Law
International Public Law
Economics
Foreign Language
Judicial Officers
Constitutional Law
Civil Law
Commercial Law
Criminal Law
Civil Procedure or Criminal Procedure
Source: MAKOTO ASO, NIPPON NO GAKUREI ERITO [THE EDUCATION-BASED ELITE IN JAPAN] 22425 (1991).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 8
Graduates of Law Faculties in 1925
Faculty
Law
Law and Letters
Governmental
186
65
Educational
3
54
Business
557
236
Total
790
379
Source: Tatsuo Maeda, Japanese Capitalism and Universities and Law Faculties (in Japanese), 22
HOU- SHAKAIGAKU 135 (1970).
TABLE 9
Monthly Salaries at Mitsui Mining Company in the 1920s
School
Technical Staff
Imperial University
70 yen
(including Tokyo College of Commerce)
Waseda
65 yen
Keio
65 yen
Other Private University
60 yen
Kobe High School of Commerce
60 yen
(now Kobe University)
Engineering High School
55 yen
Other High School of Commerce
55 yen
Vocational School
55 yen
Clerical and Managerial Staff
75 yen
65 yen
60 yen
Source: Tatsuo Maeda, Japanese Capitalism and Universities and Law Faculties (in Japanese), 22
HOU- SHAKAIGAKU 118 (1970).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 10
Number of Law Faculties and Law Students in 1972 and 1992
Authorized No. of Students in the Entering Class
Separate Law Faculty
No. of Law Institutions
Day Program
Night Program
15 (9)*
3 (2)
69 (41)
4,206 (2,090)
550 (250)
32,710 (12,990)
225 (60)
153 (90)
3,730 (3,050)
7 (11)
3 (2)
97 (65)
1,175 (1,100)
510 (520)
39,051 (16,960)
70 (110)
60 (320)
4,240 (3,630)
National
Municipal
Private
Law in Composite Faculty
National
Municipal
Private
*Note: Numbers in parentheses are for 1972.
Source: Yasuhei Taniguchi, Legal Education in Japan, in TECHNOLOGY IN THE PACIFIC COMMUNITY 312 (Philip
S.C. Lewis ed., 1994).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
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TABLE 11
Postwar Prime Ministers Since 1946
Inauguration
5/46
5/47
3/48
10/48
2/49
10/52
5/53
12/54
3/55
11/55
12/56
2/57
6/58
7/60
?/61
12/63
11/64
2/67
1/70
7/72
12/72
12/74
12/76
12/78
Name
Shigeru Yoshida
Tetsu Katayama
Hitoshi Katayama
Shigeru Yoshida
Shigeru Yoshida
Shigeru Yoshida
Shigeru Yoshida
Ichiro Hatoyama
Ichiro Hatoyama
Ichiro Hatoyama
Tanzan Ishibashi
Nobusuke Kishi
Nobusuke Kishi
Hayato Ikeda
Hayato Ikeda
Hayato Ikeda
Eisaku Sato
Eisaku Sato
Eisaku Sato
Kakuei Tanaka
Kakuei Tanaka
Takeo Miki
Takeo Fukuda
Masayoshi Ohira
11/79
7/80
11/82
12/83
7/86
11/87
6/89
Masayoshi Ohira
Zenko Suzuki
Yasuhiro Nakasone
Yasuhiro Nakasone
Yasuhiro Nakasone
Noboru Takeshita
Sosuke Uno
8/89
2/90
11/91
8/93
4/94
Toshiki Kaifu
Toshiki Kaifu
Kiichi Miyazawa
Morihiro Hosokawa
Tsutomu Hata
Party
University/Faculty
Liberal
Tokyo/Law
Socialist
Tokyo/Law
Democratic
Tokyo/Law
Liberal
Tokyo/Law
Liberal
Tokyo/Law
Liberal
Tokyo/Law
Liberal
Tokyo/Law
Democratic
Tokyo/Law
Democratic
Tokyo/Law
Liberal Dem. (LDP) Tokyo/Law
LDP
Waseda/Letters
LDP
Tokyo/Law
LDP
Tokyo/Law
LDP
Kyoto/Law
LDP
Kyoto/Law
LDP
Kyoto/Law
LDP
Tokyo/Law
LDP
Tokyo/Law
LDP
Tokyo/Law
LDP
LDP
LDP
Meiji/Law
LDP
Tokyo/Law
LDP
Tokyo Univ. of Commerce
(now Hitotsubashi)
LDP
Tokyo Univ. of Commerce
LDP
LDP
Tokyo/Law
LDP
Tokyo/Law
LDP
Tokyo/Law
LDP
Waseda/Commerce
LDP
Kobe University of Commerce
(now Kobe)
LDP
Waseda/Law
LDP
Waseda/Law
LDP
Tokyo/Law
Nippon New Party
Sophia/Law
Renewal Party
Seijo/Economics
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
7/94
1/96
11/96
7/98
Tomiichi Murayama
Ryutaro Hashimoto
Ryutaro Hashimoto
Keizo Obuchi
1 APLPJ 2
Socialist
LDP
LDP
LDP
Meiji/Political Economics
Keio/Law
Keio/Law
Waseda/Letters*
• Note: Information on Keizo Obuchi provided by Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
gathered from <http://www.infojapan.org/about/hq/profile/ob_episod.html>;
<http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/
profile/career/career02.html> (visited Feb. 12, 2000).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
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TABLE 12
Cabinet Ministers of Selected Years
University/Faculty
Number (Note)
1st Cabinet under Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi (as of 7/57)
Tokyo/Law
National/Other
Private/Law
Waseda/Other
No University
12
2
2
3
1
Total
20
(including Prime Minister)
(no Tokyo; 1 Kyoto)
(no Waseda; no Keio)
Note: The cabinet was formed in 2/57, and was reshuffled in 7/57.
Cabinet under Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda (as of 11/76)
Tokyo/Law
9 (including Prime Minister)
Kyoto/Law
1
National/Other
3 (no Tokyo; 1 Kyoto)
Private/Law
3 (no Waseda; no Keio)
Private/Other
4 (no Waseda; no Keio)
No University
2
Total
22
Note: The cabinet was formed in 12/76, and was reshuffled in 11/77.
Source for the two cabinets above: SHINPAN NIPPON GAKOSHI JITEN [DICTIONARY OF JAPANESE
DIPLOMACY: NEW EDITION] (1992).
2nd Cabinet under Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto (9/97)*
Tokyo/Law
4
Kyoto/Law
1
National/Other`
4 (1 Tokyo; 1 Kyoto)
Waseda/Law
1
Keio/Law
1 (Prime Minister)
Other Private/Law
1
Private/Other
9 (1 Waseda; 3 Keio)
No University
1
Total
22
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
* Note: The cabinet was formed in 11/96, and was reshuffled in 9/97.
Source: SANKEI SHIMBUN, Sept. 12, 1997.
1 APLPJ 2
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 13
Former Career Bureaucrats Among Cabinet Ministers 1946-78
University/Faculty
House of Representatives
Tokyo/Law
58
Tokyo/Other
12
Kyoto
6
Other National & Municipal
4
Private
3
Other
3
Total
86
House of Councilors
34
3
2
4
2
1
46
Total
92
15
8
8
5
4
132
Source: RYUKICHI KITAGAWA & JUN KAINUMA, NIPPON NO ERITO [THE ELITE OF JAPAN] 124
(1985).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 14
Members of the House of Representatives in the Diet in Selected Years
University/Faculty
2/55
Total
Tokyo/Law
Tokyo/Other
Kyoto/Law
Other/Law
Attorneys among them
10/96 Election
Total
Tokyo/Law
Tokyo/Other
Kyoto/Law
Other/Law
Attorneys among them
Number (%)
467
98
16
19
70
(21.0%)
(3.4%)
(4.1%)
(15.0%)
63
(13.5%)
500
68
16
9
107
(13.6%)
(3.4%)
(1.8%)
(21.4%)
23
(4.6%)
Sources: various newspapers reporting election results.
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 15
Members of the House of Councilors in the Diet in Selected Years
University/Faculty
Number (%) (Note)
4/53 and 7/56 Elections Combined*
Total
255
Tokyo/Law
60 (23.5%)
Tokyo/Other
25 (9.8%)
Kyoto/Law
1 (0.4%)
Other/Law
15 (5.9%)
Attorneys among them
12 (4.7%)
7/92 and 7/95 Elections Combined*
Total
253
Tokyo/Law
26 (10.3%)
Tokyo/Other
18 (7.1%)
Kyoto/Law
5 (2.0%)
Other/Law
44 (17.4%)
Attorneys among them
11 (4.3%) (including one barrister)
* Note: Half of the seats are elected every three years.
Sources: various newspapers reporting election results.
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 16
Backgrounds of Members of the House of Representatives in the Diet (by percentage)
Party:
Liberal
Democratic
(1955)
Japan
Socialist
(1955)
Japan
Communist
(1946)
All Members Until 1982
University Graduates
U. of Tokyo Graduates
Local Politicians
High-Ranking Bureaucrats
Business Executives
Politician’s Staff
Attorneys
Party Functionaries
Union Officials
N=732
74%
29%
26%
21%
15%
11%
4%
1%
0%
N=362
44%
10%
26%
2%
3%
1%
3%
14%
37%
N=90
54%
20%
14%
0%
1%
0%
21%
34%
10%
Elected in 1983
University Graduates
U. of Tokyo Graduates
Local Politicians
High-Ranking Bureaucrats
Business Executives
Politician’s Staff
Attorneys
Party Functionaries
Union Officials
N=258
83%
29%
26%
20%
16%
19%
3%
1%
0%
N=111
44%
4%
33%
0%
1%
2%
3%
7%
44%
N=26
69%
31%
23%
0%
0%
0%
31%
23%
7%
(Year of Founding)
Source: Daniel I. Okimoto, Ex-Bureaucrats in the Liberal-Democratic Party, in INSIDE THE
JAPANESE SYSTEM 189 (Daniel I. Okimoto & Thomas R. Rohlen eds., 1988).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 17
Schools with the Top Numbers of Students Passing Higher Civil Servants Examination for
Administrators: 1894 to 1947
Tokyo Imperial University
Among them, Law 5,653
Economics
299
Kyoto Imperial University
Chuo University (private)
Nippon University (private)
Tokyo University of Commerce
(national; now Hitotsubashi)
Tohoku Imperial University
Waseda University (private)
Postal Officer Training School
Meiji University (private)
Kyushu Imperial University
5,969
795
444
306
211
188
182
173
144
137
Source: RYUKICHI KITAGAWA & JUN KAINUMA, NIPPON NO ERITO [THE ELITE OF JAPAN] 101
(1985).
TABLE 18
High-Ranking Bureaucrats from 1932-1947*
Ministry of Finance
Total
347
Tokyo
297 (85.6%)
Ministry of Home Affairs
Total
189
Tokyo
143 (75.7%)
* Note: Those at the rank of bureau chief (kyokucho) or higher are counted.
Source: RYUKICHI KITAGAWA & JUN KAINUMA, NIPPON NO ERITO [THE ELITE OF JAPAN] 101
(1985).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 19
High-Ranking Bureaucrats in Postwar Period*
University/Faculty
1954
Tokyo/Law
Tokyo/Other
Kyoto/Law
Other/Law
Other/Other
Total
Number (%) (Note)
63
10
2
3
10
(71.6%) (7 out of 8 at Finance)
(11.4%)
(2.3%)
(3.4%)
(11.4%)
88
Source: KOKUSEI SORAN 1954 (1954 NATIONAL DIRECTORY) (1954).
1995
Tokyo/Law
Tokyo/Other
Kyoto/Law
Other/Law
Other/Other
Total
75
11
6
6
10
(69.4%) (9 out of 9 at Finance; 5 out of 5 at Home Affairs)
(10.2%)
(5.5%)
(5.5%)
(9.3%)
108
Source: KOKUSEI SORAN 1995 (1995 NATIONAL DIRECTORY) (1995).
* Note: Those at the rank of bureau chief (kyokucho) or higher in Ministries (sho or fu) are
counted. Those in Agencies (cho) are not counted for the sake of simplicity.
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 20
National Civil Service Examination, Recruitment by Ministries, and Universities of HighRanking Bureaucrats*
1976
New Recruits and Graduates of the University of Tokyo
Total
573
Finance
32
Home Affairs
12
MITI
37
National Police 24
1976
Tokyo
265 (46.2%)
20 (62.5%)
12 (100%)
29 (78.3%)
16 (66.7%)
Kyoto
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
Universities of Graduates at the Rank of Section Chief (kacho) or Higher of Major Ministries
Total
1,600
Finance
105
Home Affairs
41
MITI
113
National Police 49
Tokyo
1,001 (62.6%)
93 (88.6)
31 (75.6%)
93 (82.3%)
22 (44.9%)
Kyoto
137 (8.6%)
6 (5.7%)
5 (12.2%)
7 (6.2%)
2 (4.1%)
1976
Tokyo and Kyoto Graduates at the Rank of Bureau Chief (kyokucho) or Higher of Major
Ministries
Total
Tokyo
Kyoto
155
126 (81.3%)
16 (10.3%)
Finance
11
11 (100%)
n/a
Home Affairs
5
4 (80%)
n/a
MITI
10
8 (80%)
2 (20.0%)
National Police
8
7 (87.5%)
n/a
Source for the three tables above: YOTARO KONAKA , TODAI HOGAKUBU [TOKYO UNIVERSITY LAW
FACULTY] 112-114 (1978)
1994
Passed the Examination (8/94)
Total
Tokyo
1,725
436 (25.3%)
Recruited by Ministries (as of 10/94)
287
149 (51.9%)
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
Source: ASAHI SHIMBUN, Aug. 10, 1994 (evening) and Oct. 5, 1994 (morning).
1996
Recruits of the Ministry of Finance
Tokyo/Law
Tokyo/Other
Kyoto
Keio
Hitotsubashi
Waseda
Total
6 (including 1 woman)
5
2
2 (including 1 woman)
1
1
17
Source: ASAHI SHIMBUN, Oct. 3, 1997 (international satellite ed.).
* Note: Only fast-track career bureaucrats are counted.
1 APLPJ 2
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 21
Fields of Civil Service Examination of Recruits* of Major Ministries in 1981
Ministry
Finance
Education
Health
Agriculture
MITI
Transportation
Post
Labor
Construction
Home Affairs
National Police Agency
Administration
1
2
3
0
1
0
0
2
0
0
3
Law
18
11
8
12
15
14
7
6
11
14
16
Economics
8
1
1
4
13
3
4
2
4
1
1
* Note: Only clerical staff (jimukan) among fast-track career bureaucrats are counted.
Technical staff (gikan) are not counted.
Source: RYUKICHI KITAGAWA & JUN KAINUMA, NIPPON NO ERITO [THE ELITE OF JAPAN] 147
(1985).
TABLE 22
Domination of Clerical Staff: Ministry of Agriculture in 1981*
Vice Minister
Bureau Chief
Senior Department Chief and Similar Position
Department Chief and Similar Position
Managerial Position of Local Office
Clerical
1
7
20
31
24
Technical
0
2
9
67
38
* Note: Only fast-track career bureaucrats are counted.
Source: RYUKICHI KITAGAWA & JUN KAINUMA, NIPPON NO ERITO [THE ELITE OF JAPAN] 160
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
(1985).
TABLE 23
Graduates of the University of Tokyo Law Faculty in 1981
Total
595
National Government
Ministry of Finance
National Police Agency
Ministry of Home Affairs
MITI
Ministry of Transportation
Ministry of Construction
Public Corporations and Local Governments
122
15
14
13
12
10
10
47
Judicial Research and Training Institute
Research Associate of the U. of Tokyo Law Faculty
Banks and Brokerage Firms
Insurance Companies
Steel and Nonferrous Metals
Trading Companies
Shipbuilding and Machinery
Electric and Electronic Appliances
Reentering the U. of Tokyo Law Faculty
Graduate School of Law of the U. of Tokyo
32
8
156
20
19
31
18
24
14
6
Source: RYUKICHI KITAGAWA & JUN KAINUMA, NIPPON NO ERITO [THE ELITE OF JAPAN] 126
(1985).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 24
Largest Employers of Graduates of the Law Faculties of the University of Tokyo, Kyoto
University, and Kobe University in 1997
Tokyo
48 Professors, 23 Associate Professors, 5 Lecturers
Number of Graduates
ca. 700
Judicial Research and Training Institute
56
Nippon Telephone and Telegraph
18
Ministry of International Trade and Industry
13
Ministry of Finance
12
Ministry of Home Affairs
12
National Police Agency
11
Bank of Japan
10
Ministry of Transportation
10
Industrial Bank of Japan
9
Tokyo Marine and Fire Insurance
9
Kyoto
36 Professors, 14 Associate Professors, 1 Lecturer
Number of Graduates
Judicial Research and Training Institute
Sumitomo Bank
Kansai Electric
Nippon Life Insurance
Mitsubishi Bank
Sanwa Bank
Prime Minister’s Office
Kyoto City
Daiichi Kangyo Bank
Industrial Bank of Japan
Sumitomo Trading
Kobe
ca. 400
no data
11
8
8
6
6
5
5
5
5
5
31 Professors, 15 Associate Professors, 1 Lecturer
Number of Graduates
Judicial Research and Training Institute
Nippon Life Insurance
Kobe City
Nippon Telephone and Telegraph
ca. 220
no data
6
6
4
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
Sekisui Chemical
Daiei
1 APLPJ 2
3
3
Source: ASAHI SHIMBUNSHA , DAIGAKU RANKING ‘97 [UNIVERSITY RANKING ‘97] (1997).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 25
Presidents of Largest Companies
University/Faculty
Number (%)
1975: Capital 30 Billion Yen or More
Tokyo/Law
16 (22.9%)
Tokyo/Other
21 (30.0%)
Kyoto/Law
2 (2.9%)
Waseda/Law
1 (1.4%)
Other/Law
2 (2.9%)
Other/Other
28 (40.0%)
Total
70
Source: DAIYAMONDO KAISHA SHOKUINROKU 1976 [1976 DIRECTORY OF COMPANY EXECUTIVES]
(1975).
1995: Capital 100 Billion Yen or More
Tokyo/Law
18 (22.2%)
Tokyo/Other
22 (27.2%)
Kyoto/Law
5 (6.2%)
Other National/Law
5 (6.2%)
Waseda/Law
1 (1.2%)
Keio/Law
2 (2.5%)
Other/Law
1 (1.2%)
Other/Other
27 (33.3%)
Total
81
Source: DAIYAMONDO KAISHA SHOKUINROKU 1996 [1996 DIRECTORY OF COMPANY EXECUTIVES]
(1995).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 26
Members of a Business-Leader Group for Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki in 1981
Tokyo/Law
10 (including Presidents of the Japan Chambers of Commerce and Industry
and the Japan Federation of Employers’ Associations)
Tokyo/Other
11 (including President of the Federation of Economic Organizations and
Representative Secretary of the Japan Association of Corporate
Executives)
Kyoto/Other
Other National/Law
Other National/Other
Private/Law
Private/Other
No University
Total
1
1
7
1
0
2
33
Source: RYUKICHI KITAGAWA & JUN KAINUMA, NIPPON NO ERITO [THE ELITE OF JAPAN] 141
(1985).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 27
High-Ranking Judges*
University/Faculty
Number (%) (Note)
1954
Tokyo/Law
Kyoto/Law
Other/Law
All Others
23
2
5
1
Total
(74.2%) (including Chief Justice)
(6.5%)
(16.1%)
(3.2%)
31
Source: KOKUSEI SORAN 1954 [1954 NATIONAL DIRECTORY] (1954).
1995
Tokyo/Law
Kyoto/Law
Other/Law
All Others
Total
16
11
1
3
(51.6%) (including Chief Justice)
(35.6%)
(3.2%)
(9.7%)
31
Source: KOKUSEI SORAN 1995 [1995 NATIONAL DIRECTORY] (1995).
* Note: Supreme court justices, judges at the rank of bureau chief (kyokucho) or higher in the
Supreme Court General Secretariat, chief judges of the high courts, and chief judges of the
Tokyo and Osaka district courts are counted.
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 28
Top Universities in the National Law Examinations in Selected Years
1961
Chuo (private)
Tokyo (national)
Kyoto (national)
Waseda (private)
Meiji (private)
Kyushu (national)
Tohoku (national)
Nippon (private)
All other universities
Total
1975
Tokyo (national)
Chuo (private)
Waseda (private)
Kyoto (national)
Meiji (private)
Osaka (national)
Hitotsubashi (national)
Tohoku (national)
Keio (private)
Kyushu (national)
Osaka City (municipal)
Nagoya (national)
Kansai (private)
All Other Universities
Total
106
41
32
19
18
17
12
11
77
333
108
77
52
42
19
16
16
13
13
11
11
10
10
74
472
Source for two years above: Haruo Abe, Education of the Legal Profession in Japan, in THE
JAPANESE LEGAL SYSTEM 572, 578 (Hideo Tanaka ed., 1976).
1996*
Tokyo (national)
Waseda (private)
Kyoto (national)
Keio (private)
191
115
90
74
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
Chuo (private)
Hitotsubashi (national)
Osaka (national)
Sophia (private)
Meiji (private)
Kyushu (national)
Nagoya (national)
Kansai (private)
All Other Universities
52
35
23
19
17
17
15
10
110
Total
768
1 APLPJ 2
* Note: The data for this year indicate those who passed the essay examination. A final oral
examination was to be administered after it, but only a few usually fail at that stage.
Source: HOUGAKU SEMINA , No. 504, 119 (1996).
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 29
Last Schools of Law Professors in Selected Years
Faculty
1966
Nine National*
Tokyo
Kyoto
Six Private**
No. of Faculty
Members
Percent from Tokyo
Graduates
Percent from Kyoto
Graduates
236
46
43
212
48.3%
100.0%
4.7%
6.6%
25.4%
22.5%
93.0%
10.2%
1976
Nine National
Tokyo
Kyoto
Six Private
262
54
37
290
50.0%
100.0%
1986
Nine National
Tokyo
Kyoto
Six Private
337
56
41
288
45.4%
94.6%
2.4%
9.0%
22.3%
1996
Nine National
Tokyo
Kyoto
Six Private
360
71
47
305
43.6%
94.4%
6.4%
11.1%
19.4%
1.4%
89.4%
7.2%
10.0%
100.0%
7.6%
97.6%
8.0%
* The “nine national” law faculties are those at the seven former imperial universities
(Hokkaido, Tohoku, Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, and Kyushu) and Hitotsubashi and Kobe
Universities.
** The “six private law” law faculties are those at Waseda, Keio, Chuo, Sophia, Doshisha, and
Ritsumeikan Universities.
Sources are: ZENKOKU DAIGAKU SHOKUINROKU 1966 [1966 NATIONAL DIRECTORY OF UNIVERSITY
FACULTY MEMBERS] (Kojunsha Henshubu ed., 1966); ZENKOKU DAIGAKU SHOKUINROKU 1976
[1976 NATIONAL DIRECTORY OF UNIVERSITY FACULTY MEMBERS] (Kojunsha Henshubu ed., 1976);
ZENKOKU DAIGAKU SHOKUINROKU 1986 [1986 NATIONAL DIRECTORY OF UNIVERSITY FACULTY
MEMBERS] (Kojunsha Henshubu ed., 1986); ZENKOKU DAIGAKU SHOKUINROKU 1996 [1996
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
NATIONAL DIRECTORY OF UNIVERSITY FACULTY MEMBERS] (Kojunsha Henshubu ed., 1996). Fulltime faculty members at the rank of lecturer or higher are counted. Faculty members in subjects other
than law, politics, and international relations are excluded. The school listed as the last school of each
faculty member is counted.
Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal
1 APLPJ 2
TABLE 30
Persons Doing Legal Work in Japan in 1982
Judges
Prosecutors
Practicing Attorneys
Company Employees
Doing Legal Work
Judicial Scriveners
Administrative Scriveners
Patent Agents
Tax Agents
Total
2,700
1,173
12,233
1,320
14,572
30,121
2,600
40,860
105,579
Population Per Person Doing Legal Work
Japan (1981)
1,119
France (1965)
4,026
West Germany (1971)
1,561
United Kingdom (1971)
1,023
United States (1978)
505
Source: Masanobu Kato, The Role of Law and Lawyers in Japan and the United States, in
COMPARATIVE LAW 290 (Kenneth L. Port ed., 1996).